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Interesting issues infront of the 70th UN General Assembly

The UN and stakeholders are considering how they should change to take up the 2030 agenda. There has been an interesting discussion with a panel of stakeholders on how Committee 2 and 3 of the UN GA should be reformed. For those that are less geeky on UN GA Committees than me there are six main UNGA Committees:

Disarmament and International Security Committee (First Committee)

Economic and Financial Committee (Second Committee)

Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee (Third Committee)

Special Political and Decolonization Committee (Fourth Committee)

Administrative and Budgetary Committee (Fifth Committee)

Legal Committee (Sixth Committee)

If you want to see what is on each Committees agenda then go here. Most stakeholders do not follow these committees as they do not allow stakeholder engagement in them 'formally'. I have actually spoken in 1996 to Committee 2 but they went to an informal session to enable me to suggest the introduction of mult-stakeholder dialogues for Rio+5 based on the experience stakeholders had had in Habitat II. There is increased recognition that the involvement of stakeholders in the UNGA is a good idea and the UN Security Council has adopted a more positive approach inviting stakeholders to discus certain issues with it. Most recently on October 13th when a number of statements were made on behalf of the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security at the UN Security Council Open Debate on Women, Peace and Security.

This years UNGA has a number of resolutions that are important for the follow up to the 2030 Agenda.

International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development, 2017 - here

Jeffrey Huffines the NGO Major Group Organizing Partner and CIVICUS UN Representative (NY) has been hosting a weekly meeting for those interested in Committee 2 activities which you can join from outside New York as well. The latest report from this can be found here.

We still waiting for what is known as the Agenda 21 resolution, Habitat III (this includes modalities for stakeholder engagement) and the Financing for Development resolution so do go to the UNGA resolutions every day to see what is being proposed.

the moderator was Geoffrey Hamilton Chief of the PPP Programme at UNECE, asked a number of question. My comments were as follows:1. Do the 8 Guiding Principles on People-First PPPs reflect the new model that is needed for the UN Sustainable Development Goals?

One of my colleagues on the panel here did make a comment about regulation. I would remind everyone that the lack of regulation around the banks saw them privatize the profits and socialized the losses. We cant see the same with PPPs. I would comment on what Geoffrey said in his opening about someone from the EU commenting that too many rules might frighten away some in the private sector. Well I say so be it. If they d…

Who leads UNEP? The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is – at its core – an organization driven by member states, particularly with the setting up of United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) after Rio+20. However, stakeholders play an important role in the organization, providing guidance in the realms of policy and science. This is to assist member states in making good decisions and to work in partnership in delivering these decisions within the framework of the UNEP Programme of Work.
UNEP’s functions are inherently political, and member states define such core functions of UNEP has in the normative and political convening spaces in the programme of work. Any work with stakeholders, including the private sector, needs to be anchored in that programme of work. The hope of many member states and stakeholders is that their concerns about the recent direction of UNEP have been heard and are being acted upon by its leadership.

Felix Dodds is a Senior Fellow at the Global Research Institute and a Senior Affiliate at the Water Institute at University of North Carolina and an Associate Fellow at the Tellus Institute. He was for 20 years the Executive Director of Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future (1992-2012). He played a significant role in the Rio+20 Conference and has been active at the UN since 1990 attending key meetings on sustainable development.He is an International Ambassador for the City of Bonn.
In 2011 he chaired the UN DPI NGO 64th Conference on Sustainable Societies - Responsive Citizens, he also co-chaired the UN Commission on Sustainable Development NGO Steering Committee (1997-2001)
He has written or edited 14 books his latest is Negotiating the Sustainable Development Goals with Abassador Donoghue and Jimena Roesch which completes the Vienna Cafe Trilogy with the New Development Agenda and 'From Rio+20 to the New Development Agenda' written with Jorge Laguna and Liz Thompson and Only One Earth written with Maurice Strong and Michael Strauss. .His other books are: The Water, Food, Energy and Climate Nexus: Challenges and an Agenda for Action edited by Felix Dodds and Jamie Bartram (2016); Governance for Sustainable Development (2015) (edited); The Plain Language Guide to Rio+20 (2013); Into the 21st Century (Green Print 1988),
+ The Way Forward Beyond Agenda 21 (1997);
+ Earth Summit 2002 (2000);
+ Multi-stakeholder processes (2002);
+ How to Lobby at Intergovernmental Meetings (2004);
+ Human and Environmental Security (2005);
+ Negotiating and Implementing MEAs (2007);
+ Climate and Energy Insecurity (2009);
+ Biodiversity and Ecosystem Insecurity (2011);
+ Only One Earth (2012). Most recently he has written his forst comic with Michael Strauss Santa's Green Christmas: Father Christmas Battles Climate Change (2016); He writes occasionally for the BBC Green Room and Outreach, and Network 2012. He has written for BEST NME, Liberator, New Democrat, New Statesman, Habitat, IISD MEA Bulletin
He has been an advisor on the UK, Danish and European Union delegations for meetings on environment. ( the Danish were the most fun :-) )
From 2006 and 2008 at the San Sebastian Film Festival he conducted a ten day blog linking the festival themes to the politics of the day He is also twittering @felixdodds
He chaired the National League of Young Liberals and was a member of the Liberal Party Council and Policy Panel on Defence. He is at present President of Amber Valley Liberal Democrats. His Power to the People book is a coming of age book in a political world